Andrew Haigh is one of the most respected English filmmakers working today because of the humane and tender qualities he lends his projects. Whether it’s his LGBT-themed dramas like “Weekend” and “Looking,” or the truly excellent “45 Years” from 2015, Haigh brings a subtle and tender style reminiscent of a novelist’s sensibility. Even his 2017 film “Lean On Pete” is adapted from a novel of the same name.
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Haigh’s next project has a similar literary flavor, as it’s another adaptation, but its content will undoubtedly catch the director’s fans off guard. That’s because “The North Water,” set to premiere this month as a four-part mini-series, centers around subject matter about as inhumane as it can get: the mid-19th century commercial whale-killing trade.
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Based on the 2016 novel by Ian McGuire, “The North Water” follows a doomed whaling vessel in a floundering industry as it heads toward hunting waters near the arctic circle. Onboard Volunteer is a crew of outcasts and ne’er-do-wells. Henry Drax is the ship’s harpooner, a violent psychopath known to rape and murder children. Sumner is a disgraced ex-army surgeon, in exile from the Seige of Dehli in India as the ship’s doctor. The Captain is Brownlee, who lost his last ship and crew at sea, and is in secret consort with the Volunteer‘s owner to scuttle the boat on an insurance scam. The voyage soon becomes a collision course for these men and their depravity as they struggle against the harsh and frigid wasteland.
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Colin Farrell leads the cast as the killer Henry Drax, with Jack O’Connell and Stephen Graham on board (no pun intended) as Sumner and Brownlee. Tom Courtenay, who co-starred in “45 Years” for Haigh, plays Baxter, the ship’s owner. Peter Mullan, Gary Lamont, and Sam Spruell, and other British actors round out the cast.
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Production got underway in October 2019 in Hungary and Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. Cast and crew traveled as far north as 81 degrees latitude to film scenes on ice sheets. BBC believes it’s the furthest north a television drama has ever shot.
A cruel and unforgiving tale like “The North Water” is quite a departure for Haigh, but also an exciting one. McGuire’s novel made the longlist for the 2016 Booker Prize, and Farrell and Graham are likely to thrive with such unremittingly brutal source material. How will Haigh as a director fare in this uncharted, and likely blood-soaked, territory? Audiences find out when the show arrives on AMC+ on July 15.